Richard B. Hammer, 79

Richard B. Hammer, a Springs summer and weekend resident since 1971, died of cancer on Aug. 22 at his retirement home in Naples, Fla. He was 79, and had been diagnosed not long before.

Born on Feb. 26, 1935, Mr. Hammer grew up on Chicago’s South Side, graduating from Navy Pier High School there and then from the University of Illinois Urbana-Cambria, with a B.S. in marketing.

He was a disc jockey on the university radio station when, said his son, Richard A. Hammer, he went out on a date with a co-ed named Beverly Beutel. The next weekend, before going off the air, he announced that if anyone wanted a date, they should give him a call. The phone rang. It was the future Mrs. Hammer. “How dare you?” she said. From then on, they were a couple.

Mr. Hammer enlisted in the Navy after college, serving aboard the U.S.S. Cambia, an attack transport ship stationed in the Mediterranean, as a chief petty officer. He and his college sweetheart, who had stayed in touch by mail, were married on June 25, 1960, at St. Daniel’s Church in Chicago. Soon after, they moved to New York City, where he began a career in media advertising sales, first for radio, then television, working for individual stations as well as networks. He eventually managed the Christian Broadcasting Network’s entire advertising sales program.

The Hammers lived in Yonkers before moving to Rockville Centre.  Their Springs house, where they spent as much time as possible, was one of the first built in Clearwater Beach. In time, they sold that house and moved to Northwest Woods.

Mr. Hammer, a keen fisherman, preferred wooden boats to all others, said his son. “I remember being with my father at the Montauk Lighthouse,” his son said. “Then we’d go to the Montauket for lunch,” or fishing off the Three Mile Harbor town dock.

Tragedy struck the family on July 17, 1996. Mr. Hammer’s wife and daughter, Tracy Anne Hammer, both died in the TWA 800 plane crash off East Moriches. The plane went down in the Atlantic; all 230 people on board were killed. The cause has never been determined with certainty.

Mr. Hammer eventually remarried. His second wife, the former Dianne Malashivich, became an integral part of his life and his son’s, said the younger man.

After he retired in 2008 and moved to Naples, Mr. Hammer went into the rental real estate business, buying houses, fixing them up, renting them out, and eventually selling them. His son said the business gave his father “great joy,” and that the family received many floral tributes from former renters after his death.

In addition to his son, who lives in Montauk, he leaves a grandson, Truman Andrew Hammer.

A funeral Mass was said at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton, followed by burial with military honors at the church cemetery, beside his wife and daughter. Contributions in Mr. Hammer’s memory may be made to the American Cancer Society, P.O. Box 22718, Oklahoma City 73123.